The special election to find a replacement for Congresswoman Yvette Clarke in the NYC council, took place three weeks ago (2-20-07), with candidate Mathieu Eugene the indisputable winner. Now we are being told by the winner, that he will not submit documentation proving that he resided in the district by the day of the election, as the law states/requires, as interpreted by the Attorney General. But is Cuomo correct in this interpretation? We are in virgin territory folks.
In my 34 years in NYC politics, I have never seen or heard of the council requiring someone to prove their residency before swearing them into office. I am being told that it has never happened before in the four hundred and fifty-four year history of the council. So why do this now? Well, I will get to that in a minute.
Now we are being told that there would be a re-run of this special election. The Board of Elections (BOE) has said that it cannot take place before April 24th, 2007. The Campaign Finance Board (CFB) has even sent out an advisory in expectation of a new election. Exactly what that means is anyone’s guess. Do we go through a new petition phase? Do we run the same candidates (all) over again? Do we allow new candidates (Lord have mercy)? What are the ground rules? It’s becoming the race without end folks. Let’s all say a collective: amen.
Don’t forget that in June, the petition phase starts up again for the September primary, and culminates with the general election in November of this year. Thus, by November we will have four elections for this seat in less than 10 months; so you could see why I call this “the race without end”. Let me get another: amen.
As much as I still hold to the view that Eugene was probably the weakest link of all the candidates who ran in this race, I will be lying if I said that I didn’t sympathize (to some extent/ and only on a very minimal level) with his dilemma here. The reasons I will get to in a bit. And yet Mathieu Eugene brought all this upon himself, and I think it was simply because of a combination of things and events, which could have been easily controlled. For example, the terrible handling of this candidate by the public relations people is inexplicable. Here, I am hoping that my buddy Michael Roberts doesn’t have his fingerprints on this one, since –hubris aside-Eugene is just not ready for prime time; and I am sure that the handlers always knew this. Then there is Eugene’s apparent refusal to accept and acknowledge his limitations, and also his frenzied media driven ego blow up, probably fuelled by historic longing, deep insecurities, some type of nostalgia (group induced, I am assuming)), and maybe sheer excitement. Finally, it’s obvious that he is looking for his fifteen minutes of media glory-which he deserves by the way- since many in the Haitian-American community want this one.
Once he had snagged the endorsements of Yvette and Una Clarke, then pulled the coveted endorsement from the Health Workers Union (1199), then serendipitously found that Ferdinand Zizi- the only other Haitian-American candidate in the race- couldn’t make the ballot because of failure to meet the minimum signature requirement standard for obtaining ballot access, then it must have dawned on Eugene, that victory is close at hand; especially in an eleven-candidate race. In case you are wondering who the eleventh candidate was, then let me remind you: Gerry Hopkins. Hopkins tenaciously refused to go away; staging a write-in campaign after being removed from the ballot on a technicality.
So here are the Board of Election’s certified final results, from a district where roughly ten percent of the registered voters showed up:
1. Mathieu Eugene, 2076 (34%)
2. Jennifer James, 0942 (15%)
3. Wellington Sharpe, 0728 (12%)
4. Harry Schiffman, 0490 (8%)
5. Jesse Hamilton, 0463 (8%)
6. Mohammed Ravzi, 0432 (7%)
7. Joel Toney, 0365 (6%)
8. Leithland Tulloch, 0298 (5%)
9. Zenobia McNally, 0276 (4%)
10. Karlene Gordon, 0072 (1%)
Gerry Hopkins, 0023 (0%)
Malcolm Davis, 0001 (0%)
(Percentages are rounded off to the nearest whole).
Public Counter=5904. Emergency ballots=19. Absentee/Military ballots=180. Affidavidits=75. Total Ballots=6178. Total votes counted=6166. Total votes unrecorded=12.
From these results we could glean that it will be an uphill task to turn back Eugene, if another special election is called within the next two months. No matter how badly he damaged himself in the post-election circus, once the Clarkes and 1199 stay with him for the extra mile, then he is again quite formidable here.
So why would I empathize a little bit with this candidate, despite my feeling that he is intellectually challenged, and not qualified for this job? One, because his win was quite convincing; and two, because the residency laws needed to be overhauled for years, and legislators and power players knew this, but didn’t do a thing.
Let’s start with Charles Hynes; he prosecuted John O’Hara over residency issues while Hynes himself had another residence in Breezy Point, Queens, which many have suggested is really his main residence; so much for triple–standards. Remember that Hynes is BROOKLYN’S District Attorney. Has he ever considered how this looks? Then let’s go the elected officials (white, black, Latino and other, since they are all in this together); how many times haven’t they used the ambiguous, nebulous and inchoate residency laws to eliminate challengers in statewide election courts? The answer is: many.
Over the years that I have been around Brooklyn’s political scene, I have witnessed Joan Gill, Maurice Gumbs, Colin Moore, Wellington Sharpe, Ken Diamondstone, Royston Antoine, Tony Miranda, myself and many others, subjected to broad interpretations of said residency laws. I have also witnessed opposing attorneys using threats of “residency laws” in their legal papers, as a basis for challenging valid opposing petitions. If you click on my blog here on Room8, and find the two articles I did on “residency”- just this past summer- you will see in one story, that a lawyer had the balls to ask Joan Gill, when was the last time that she and her husband had sexual intercourse, under the roof that she claimed to reside. The judge allowed the question, over the objection of Mrs. Gill’s attorney. It’s a fascinating lil story, with a hilarious finish. Go read it.
A little over a decade ago, I was contemplating running for a seat on the NYC council, so I called up the NYC Board of Elections and spoke to their legal counsel looking for guidance on the issue of what constituted legal residency in a district. I was told that the law was different, relative to Federal, State and City/ Local elections.
In the state elections, I was told that I should establish residency (without explanations as to what that meant) at least a year before the primary, if I wanted to run in a district. In the city elections, I was told that I had to be residing in the district by the day petitions start circulating. For special elections at city level, I was informed that you can run from anywhere in the city, but had to be residing there by Election Day. Later, some other lawyers told me that you had time to move in, after a win. For various other positions–like district leaders, for example- the residency rules seem to get even more confusing, and appeared to be subject to interpretation. Some other lawyers later suggested that you have sixty or even ninety days to move in, after you win the race. I was also informed (and this is the kicker, folks) that some of these residency rulings were case law only, or in effect, interpretations of a lone sitting judge, and had not been challenged in the highest court of the state.
Over the years there have been rumors within political circles as to the “true” residences of such folks as Vito Lopez, Clarence Norman, Carl Andrews, Yvette Clarke, both Boylands (Tracey and Junior), Charles Hynes, Bernie Catcher, and numerous others. Is Hakeem Jeffries back into the 57th district now, after he was cruelly drawn out (in deliberate fashion) last re-districting year? Old timers in this game know exactly what I am saying here; trust me when I say this.
For many years, the lawmakers of this city and state have known that these residency laws were broken and needed to be fixed. They deliberately chose to leave as is, in order to make lawyers richer, frustrate insurgents and perpetuate their “elected class”. What was always needed was uniformity and clarity. It is still needed; and that’s why I would have gone a different legal route, if I were Eugene, James or Sharpe (the top three finishers here).
What really constitutes residency? Lawyers differ in their opinions; that’s why the supposed Doctor, Mathieu Eugene (along with a few others in this race) was given the wrong advice as to when to move into the district. Yet, Eugene was a victim of his own exuberant verbosity. He talked too fucking much for a guy skirting the peripheries (not that I am condoning deception/ I am just wearing my lawyer’s hat here) when reticence was the order of the post-election period. Then when he was caught in his own contradictions, he started lying like cheap perfume.
Speaker Quinn was absolutely correct, when she said that credible doubts had been raised as to this man’s true residency on the day of the election. What Quinn may or may not have grasped however is that legally speaking, this is all uncharted waters. Here I agree with Paul Wooten esq., whose strategy (it seems) was to go to court and define when Eugene actually won the race. Was it on Election Day (technically), or was it won (precisely) when the BOE certified the results? What the council had done in the past-when they swore in winners before BOE certification- was legally wrong. Maybe that’s what Quinn was trying to rectify or remedy.
Yet, if Quinn saw a problem (even her own swearing-in) with the way winners of special-elections were seated in the past, then she is being somewhat disingenuous or at least duplicitous. WHY? Because she is really saying that the race isn’t won until the board certifies the winner. Thus Eugene’s burden of proof was to establish last Thursday that he was living in the district on Thursday 8th March, 2007.
So all those who like to stay “anonymously” on these blogs and attack Errol Louis and I, because we are proud of our ivy-league educational credentials (sometimes implying that we are both intellectual snobs), need to ask themselves: how come all those high-priced lawyers and advisors didn’t see this one? Eugene had a bevy of advisors around him; from the Clarkes and their inner-circle (including John Flateau, who is truly brilliant on many levels, academically and politically); to the union and its legal team(s); to those in the Haitian–American community on his side (including DeGraf/attorney); and all those who- like me- wanted to see a brilliant gambit to close this fiasco; a gambit capable of producing checkmate. After all, stalemates are boring and self-explanatory: stale. And after three weeks this was getting stale.
This guy Eugene is unraveling like a twenty dollar suit folks. Now he enters the “Liars Hall of Fame and Shame”, taking his rightful place alongside his mentors: Yvette Clarke and Una Clarke. He will be greeted to the hall by the welcoming committee of Bill and Hilary Clinton. Remember that Yvette couldn’t recall that she had never graduated from college, whilst her resume said she did; while the candidate profile that she filed under oath with Campaign Finance Board, said she did also. While the jobs she got over the years aid she did. And now I am told that her mother (Una) runs around, claiming a doctorate that she never studied for. I think it’s time to send in the fucking clowns folks. And I am not apologizing for my profanity here, since I really want to shock some of you political cynics into action; not just on this issue, but also on the state of politics in this damn county. We need more involvement from the John Legend people (“ordinary people”) and also from the Sly Sylvester Stone people (“everyday people”), in order to turn the politic on its head. We need higher standards in politics; we need to demand more of from our elected officials, even with their endorsements. We need union officials to not just rubber-stamp the cronies of electeds. We need to re-think we way we do politics here in the good ole U.S of A. We need to pursue high quality representation at ALL times.
Look, no matter what is being said on the streets, all this is still very embarrassing for many grass root Haitian-American political activists. Remember I broke the news on the blogs that Haitian- Americans were seeking to be empowered in this seat; well although many of them are tolerant of the outcome of this race, some are still embarrassed by the fact that Eugene broke his word, when he walked away from the consensus process (see one of my earlier pieces on this race). They don’t trust him beyond their eyesight. Some do not wish him well in his future political endeavors. Some are predicting that he will self-destruct. They say he is has ambition, but just like the Clarkes, that he has loyalties only to himself.
When Speaker Quinn requested that the winners of both special elections held that day (the other was in Staten Island), submit proof that they were living in their respective districts on the day of the election-per Attorney General Cuomo’s ruling- Eugene’s handlers had him on television stating clearly for the world to see, that he had obtained a lease for his new apartment dated February 1st, 2007. To this day, that lease has never been made available for public scrutiny. It has been stated by the press that he and his handlers agreed to cooperate with the speaker’s staff to get a resolution (closure) to the imbroglio. He was supposed to submit documents to support his very public assertion that he had moved into the district before the election. However, the speaker threw him a little curve ball, in that she wanted all the proof and documentation in affidavit form. So the question was: will Eugene go under oath to maintain his very public assertions?
Many eyes were now focused on the supposed doctor; after all, he did say on public radio- just one day before the election- that he hadn’t moved into the district yet? Then a few days after the election, he contradicted himself by claiming to have started sleeping in the apartment before the elections, even though he couldn’t remember the actual date when this first occurred. Some of his new neighbors disputed this however; one said publicly that no one was in that apartment until after the elections. Maybe the guy was sleep-walking from Canarsie? Maybe he was day-dreaming?
With Quinn wanting to interview his wife and kids, Eugene’s dilemma was similar to Pinocchio’s. From day to day on the New York One television reports, you could see his nose growing- just like Pinocchio’s. Where was his driver’s license registered? When was it changed; if it was changed? What about his voter registration; under which address? What about utilities? When were they turned on? Where was the lease? A brilliant writer once observed: “Oh what a tangled web we weave!” So maybe the lessons to be gleaned from all this would be: never try deceiving the public so publicly.
The supposed good doctor Mathieu Eugene seems to have also forgotten which medical school he graduated from; and also when did that actually take place. Something similar to Yvette’s disclosure last year. I am sure that by now his handlers have gotten the year down pat. Based on what some of his supporters have been saying in the streets, it could be a medical school from Haiti, Santo Domingo, Mexico, Brussels, Belgium or Germany; take your pick for the med-school of the week. His detractors are saying that he flunked out from at least one med-school. Look, I am not telling you to believe everything that’s being rumored regarding this enigma, but there are enough red-flags being thrown to ask and raise serious questions about whether the Clarkes and the 1199 union vetted their candidate at all, before endorsing him. Also, there are questions around failed or flawed opposition–research by his opponents.
Now questions are swirling as to whether he has practiced and/or is practicing medicine in NYC, given that he is not registered to do so with the secretary of State. Also, some are calling for investigations into the various programs he has run, and also exactly what has his job(s) entailed, given that he signs off as a medical doctor in near everything he does. Some are even asking if the man has US citizenship. Some want to scrutinize his taxes and finances. This thing could get ugly. Would Eugene stay in the race if it means being subjected to all this scrutiny? We shall see; I think it depends on how badly he wants this job. But then, the job was his: he may have blown it (maybe, I am not sure).
Then last week, after calling for a solidarity rally in support of Eugene-with hopes of pressuring Speaker Christine Quinn to seat him in the council- only about 50 or 60 people showed up. It was said on the blogs, that his handlers had even gone as far as to publicly disclose the cell phone number of Speaker Quinn, with the aim that some sort of phone-blitz- mainly from Haitian-Americans- would pressure her into seating him. Desperation seemed to set in; or was it that desperate people often take desperate measures, oblivious to the consequences. Look, his people want to take history further, but Eugene was not the first Haitian-American elected to public office in Brooklyn. As far as I know, those honors went to Rubain Durancy, when he was elected to District School Board 17 in the nineties. Furthermore, of all the Haitian candidates that I have been exposed to (Ernest Emanuel, Jean Vernet, Lola Pouissant, Michele Adolphe, Zacary LaReche and Samuel Nicolas), this one- Eugene- is the most problematic; and believe me when I say that La Reche is no bed of roses.
Last Thursday, at this apology for a political rally, Eugene asked for a re-run and stated that he will not comply with the Speaker’s request, to wit: that he provides proof of having been a resident of the district that he was elected to represent in the council, on the day of the election. To the consternation of even some who were sympathetic to him, Mathieu Eugene couldn’t elocute from a prepared statement. He was barely coherent. Then he fled without taking questions from media folks. Instead of bringing closure to this charade, he opens up new lines for media exploration. What a rocket-scientist!
If I were a lawyer for James or Sharpe, I would be off to court filing an injunction prohibiting a new election, and also forcing the council to seat the second or third place finisher, depending on which one could prove residency in the district on Election Day firstly, and if that failed, then on the day the board certified the results. This would force a judge to make some case law. The same could be said for fourth, fifth and sixth place finishers in the order of the election results. Why are we wasting taxpayers’ money with another re-run? The man has relinquished his position on the council; the person next in line should be seated.
So now, the question is: where do we go from here? In my next piece on this non-ending race, I will explore why some of these runners are returning for another round. Some are making no sense with their rationale(s). If the objective is to take down Eugene, then it will require some type of coalition. All these runners, individually going “willy-nilly” around the district, makes no tactical sense at all, and isn’t pragmatic. I seem to think that only one of James or Sharpe is viable- after all, they were the only others in the race to get their percentile into double digits. I don’t think that both running at the same time helps the objective. James has the inner-track at running again or not, by virtue of her second place finish. If she doesn’t go, then Sharpe should take his final crack at seeking public office. If he doesn’t win, then he should hang up his running shoes for good; with James having the option to regroup and return at Eugene (if he wins again) in the September democratic primary. But who wants my advice folks? I am just a frustrated Knicks fan and a wannabee comedian; right?
Stay tuned-in folks.